I know, I know... I've said it before...

...but the truth of it hasn't changed despite the fact that I've ignored myself, and my own needs.

Namely... Hiatus.


Here's the deal. Dan, ER, and BenT are my most frequesnt visitors here; Mark, Daddio, Mom, TStockmann and others make occasional appearances. When I started this blog I just wanted to bend an ear or two-- thankfully, that's about all I got.

Comments were hoped for (it's a validation thing) but I was never hung up on hoping and praying for commenters. If they came, they came; no great shakes either way. My orginal intent was to get things off my chest, and to do something with all the scraps of paper that ended up in my pocket at the end of every day... recipes, songs from RadioIo, interesting turns of a phrase, and quotes I came across online, or heard on television or radio-- a personal 'Museum of Recollections', my own 'Presidential Library' if you will.

Problem is, I've allowed it to evolve into something I never wanted, and have little time for-- if I want to get anything else done, that is. Here's my dilemma: I love to write, but I work two jobs now, and only get one day off a week, and thankfully on Sunday. I have no honest desire to debate the merits of Conservatism or the Deficiencies of Liberalism [a loaded statement if ever there was one], but that's what this blog has devolved into. Yes, you read that right: DE-volved. And because this blog takes up so much time I can't find time or enough mental acuity to handle all the other skillets I have on the fire, namely; four wood sculptures that are each almost ten years old, three paintings that are still in the early stages, and 3 short stories, 1 novella, and-- count 'em --seven novels; four of which, to my mind, show great potential of actually making it to print.

So, again, there's that word again... Hiatus... but not really. What's really going to happen here is a tapering off, as if that hasn't already happened. I'm not going to stop posting here, but neither am I going spend a lot of time in fiery debate... which, as has been amply demonstrated, accomplishes very, very little.

And that's my dilemma! In one hand I'm weighing 18 projects ranging from complex to leisurely that receive no attention and as a result sees no progress made. In the other hand is a blog that has captured my entire attention that, as has been amply demonstrated, accomplishes very, very little.

So what would you choose?

I distinctly remember sometime last year when ER deliberately scaled back to work on a ?book proposal? ...to actually accomplish something. He didn't disappear, but he refocused on what was important to him. And that is the decision I've come to. Everyone who comes here and comments spends an inordinate amount of time debating points that, ultimately, accomplish nothing. And we don't just do it here. ER has his forum, Dan and Mark theirs. And here I am, as are the rest of you, juggling debates here, and at any number of other blogs. I spend far too much time reading news-- both reputable and disreputable, and watching too many favorite TV shows... something I never did before I started working at a television station 10 years ago.

I was thumbing through a home design magazine the other evening simply because Prison Break was in commercials and the magazine was on the table in the station's lobby-- [a bit off topic: none of you know this, but I have to be doing something all the time. If I'm running tapes during the news, I'm cool... there's no downtime, but on audio... I need a crossword, a cryptgram, sudoku, a book, anything to occupy my mind during commercial breaks. That's just the way I am. I guess you could say that I thrive on mental activity, no matter how trivial... I rarely read one book at a time, it's generally three, sometimes more] --thumbing through the pages I came across an ad for God only knows what, but part of that ad contained a list of things the woman in the pool wanted to do before she bought the farm; things like hit a major league pitch, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro... and I realized my own list was sadly neglected. Which reminds me of a bit of fortune cookie wisdom I pulled from the proverbial cookie some years back: "You will get what you most desire". It should have come with the qualifying "...but only if you actively work toward your desire!" Fortune doesn't fall from the sky like pennies from heaven or a diamond studded meteor. If you're looking for gemstones you have to go where they can be found. It is an extremely rare occurence to pull into an Arizona gas station and buy a $5 piece of blue glass only to discover weeks or years later it's the largest star sapphire ever found.

If I want to get more out of every day than two jobs sandwiched between an 8am wakeup call and a 12:15am 'still sitting at the computer rattling off several responses to arguments that accomplish all but nothing' neglect of needed sleep, then that's all I'll ever get.

So, I'm not abandoning the blog, but I AM scaling back my commitment to certain aspects of it. One thing I intend to do is try to pressure Blogger to give us the ability to CHOOSE which posts to moderate. Let's face it, some topics are more volatile than others. We can, through the 'Post Options' drop box in the Create Post window, choose whether to allow comments on individual posts, why not moderation as well? This would simplify much of what we do as bloggers. I'd also like the ability to block specific bloggers from commenting without having to resort to moderation, which would save a lot of headache and the need to moderate at all.

As it is, I'm currently sitting on 4 really good stories, and I'd like to see if any of them could improve my financial outlook. So that's where I'm going to be four mornings a week instead of here. Comments will get moderated, but I won't be spending a lot of time responding to comments unless directly questioned and if a response from me would serve a purpose. I want to get one story done by November, and only one of the four is a likely candidate. Another is still in development with very little actually written. The other two are somewhere between one-third, and one-half complete. And that's just first draft.

The sculptures and painting will have to wait, and thankfully they can... the wood knows it's final shape, and the paintings are fleshed out enough to continue collecting dust without losing anything it terms of vision.

So, I know I've said it before, but I am going to scale things back a bit. Namely, my invovlement AFTER the initial post. I'm not disappearing, just becoming scarce.

And no, ER, I haven't forgotten our Jefferson conversation. I still have hope of getting out alive with some measure of vindication... and dignity.